Case study

Why Shaw Financial chose Acre

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About Shaw Financial

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Having won several awards and being celebrated as the top-rated mortgage and protection advice firm in Mansfield and the surrounding areas, Shaw Financial were looking for a tech provider that could help streamline the excellent customer service they were already delivering. We spoke to Lewis Shaw, firm Principal, about how Acre has helped him gain more time back in his day from having an end-to-end, fully integrated mortgage platform like Acre.

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Fully integrated all-in-one mortgage software

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"Most CRMs might have one integration, but a lot don't have any. So it was the integrations [in Acre] that allowed ID checking to be done within the system to be able to drag the credit report into the system and that the sourcing was built into the system. So once you generate the suitability report, all that information that's being pulled into that system is referenced, which means that you're not duplicating, you're not jumping outside of systems to do other things. So it's just much easier and user-friendly for the broker, but also it's easy for the client as well.

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Lewis wanted a mortgage CRM that connected the dots between data and services, to avoid jumping around and re-keying information. Having done a lot of research over the years into other providers, he was drawn to Acre's approach of fully integrating everything into one platform.

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"It's crazy that in this day and age, I've gotta send a link to someone to download a credit report to save as a PDF to e-mail it back to me, and then key it all in manually. As opposed to being able to verify your ID and then all that data just gets pulled in directly, straight into the system so I can check it, no rekeying. So it saves time as well."

"To have everything in one place where all that data is held centrally, you know it's verified, you know it's secure, and so that speeds things up. It also keeps me safe, from a compliance point of view"

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Modern user-friendly software

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"A lot of CRMs, not all, but a lot, look very old. Well, they are very old. So I want something that looks like it belonged in this century, you know? Acre looks like that. It looks of its time and it works of its time as well."

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Acre prides itself on building on the expertise and experience of Mortgage specialists like Lewis, we've always set out to build a best-in-class system by combining industry expertise with modern software innovations and best practices. Acre was built on the principle that by combining the best of both worlds, we can deliver the best Mortgage and Protection system in the market.

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"The way that the actual system is set up, so you can see in a Kanban style view, exactly where everything is at. So you can see what's being worked on, what's to be worked on, what's offered, very very simply."

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Getting more time back

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As with any client services business, time is precious. For different companies, this can mean different things. Most of the time being able to save time means being able to service more clients over a period, meaning increased revenue. Sometimes, however, it can mean a better quality of life. For advisors whose business performs at a level they're happy with, any time saved is time they get back for themselves. A benefit that often gets overlooked but is nonetheless very valuable.

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"I'm more productive when I'm using Acre. It cuts down on all that unnecessary work and wasted admin time. And the big thing for me is I've got more time back. So for some brokers, it will be that they want to transact more business, which it will undoubtedly do. But for me, I want to get some time back for me, which is what it's done."

Acre is now Score

What's changed?

What's changing is the name and the way we look. Acre is now trading as Score, with a fresh brand identity to match, but everything you rely on stays exactly where it is. It's still the same mortgage all-in-one platform that advisors, firms, and networks across the country already use to grow their businesses, now presented under a name that brings us in line with the wider ClearScore Group.

Why the new name?

ClearScore acquired Acre earlier this year, and we've carried plenty of momentum into life as part of the Group since. Moving to the Score brand is a natural next step, because it brings us in line with ClearScore and reflects the mission we share, which is to make home buying quicker and easier and to help people take control of their financial lives. As our founder and Managing Director Justus Brown has put it, the day-to-day service you receive won't change at all, and bringing our brand together with the Group simply makes that shared mission clearer.

Has the mission changed?

Not in the slightest! We have always been here to make home buying quicker and easier, taking the pain out of the process so that people can get into their homes sooner, and that is exactly what we will keep doing, with a good deal more behind us now to do it well.

Will the service change?

No, it won't, you'll continue working with the same platform and the same people, and your existing contracts and commercial terms stay exactly as they are, still held with the same legal entity, Acre Platforms Limited. Our Customer Success team will keep looking after you just as they do today.

About ClearScore

Who is ClearScore?

The ClearScore Group is a global leader in financial marketplaces, helping over 27 million people access credit, insurance, and other financial products with greater transparency, fairness, and control. It founded its flagship UK credit marketplace in 2015, has since expanded across four continents and into new verticals such as its DriveScore app, and now works with over 200 partners worldwide. ClearScore is profitable, growing, and on a mission to make personal finance clearer, calmer, and easier to understand, and that mission runs right through its culture, along with a genuine belief in giving people more clarity and control over their money.

How do we fit into ClearScore?

We sit alongside ClearScore's other technology platforms, including D•One, its open banking service for lenders, together powering borrowing and home lending across unsecured credit, auto finance, and now mortgages.

What does the change
unlock?

What does joining ClearScore bring?

Joining ClearScore gives us a great deal more room to grow. With their backing, we can accelerate our technology roadmap and bring new AI-powered features to the platform faster than we could before, and we can enrich what we build with ClearScore's proprietary data and insights, getting cutting-edge technology into the hands of mortgage and protection businesses sooner.

What do brokers and firms stand to gain?

For the brokers and firms who use us, it really comes down to growing faster. Drawing on ClearScore's financial power and its UK user base of over 16 million, we can build the features you ask for more quickly and bring more leads into the ecosystem, which gives brokers, networks, and advisors more opportunities to win new business.

Is the business growing?

We're growing quickly, and so are the firms who build their business on the platform. Since the acquisition, we've seen record numbers of monthly mortgage submissions come through Score, and we've more than doubled our revenue year on year, with growth of over 2.5x. That momentum is showing up in our customers' businesses too: firms on the platform are saving each broker around four days a month on application processing, identifying protection needs for 85% of their mortgage clients, and doubling their client conversion rates. Delivering results like these takes serious engineering and serious investment, and with ClearScore behind us we can keep raising that bar at a pace few others in the market can match.

Why build your business on Score?

Because you'll be choosing a platform that is built to last. A lot of new mortgage tools have appeared lately, and many of them are small, pop-up CRMs put together quickly on basic AI, the kind of thing that can disappear just as fast as it arrived. Score is a very different proposition, we are an established, whole-of-market platform that brokers, networks, and advisors across the country already trust with their businesses, and we are now backed by one of the most advanced and reliable fintech stacks in the industry through ClearScore. A proven platform, real investment, and genuine scale mean we can keep powering ahead of newer, lighter-weight tools and keep building for the long term.

Independence and
ownership

Is Acre being absorbed into ClearScore?

No. We operate as an independent business unit within the ClearScore Group, with our full management team staying exactly where they are, and we'll carry on supporting mortgage and protection firms with the same data-driven platform, now with the reach and scale of the wider Group behind us.

Will our advice-first philosophy change?

No. We have always believed that the best mortgage decisions come from high-quality, personal advice, and it is a belief ClearScore shares. If anything, the direction the market is heading only reinforces it, which is why we will stay a whole-of-market platform focused on helping brokers do their very best work for their clients.

Your data

Is my data safe?

Yes, and nothing about the move to Score changes that. Your data, and your clients' data, is protected by exactly the same contractual obligations and technical safeguards as before, and being part of ClearScore does not give anyone new access to it. We will never introduce your customers to a third party without the right consent, and your clients always keep the rights to their own data. If anything, joining a group whose entire business is built on handling data responsibly, and only ever with the user's permission, raises the bar we hold ourselves to.

The best way to see what Score can do is to book a demo, and we'll walk you through the platform and how it could work for your firm. If you'd rather drop us a line, you can reach our sales team at sales@scoremortgage.com, or send any general enquiries to hello@scoremortgage.com.